


The Sickly Shield

by Selador



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, M/M, Sick Character, Sweet, gladio has issues but who doesn't?, soft soft good gladnoct content because we need more of this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 00:05:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12199968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selador/pseuds/Selador
Summary: It's the first time Noctis has ever seen Gladio sick.





	The Sickly Shield

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adeegeeak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adeegeeak/gifts).



> Based on the prompt from @deegeeak: Gladio gets sick and hides it until he can’t?
> 
> I got a lil carried away for this prompt that was meant to occupy me while I was at the airport, and this became a full one-shot. I ALSO used it as an excuse to write some gladnoct scenes I've been waiting for a suitable set up to do. The end scene in this fic is pretty much based off this artwork by Kaciart that can be found here which is still my fav gladnoct piece: http://kaciart.tumblr.com/post/162098657393
> 
> The end line is also loosely based off the caption from this other gladnoct art piece also by Kaciart, which is here: http://kaciart.tumblr.com/post/160921678728

Gladio doesn’t get sick.

Officially, anyway. What use is a Shield that can get sick, after all? Whenever Gladio does get sick, or injured, he hides away using ‘sudden camping’ trip as an excuse. When he was younger, his father or one of his relatives would help with the lie, but as he got older, he could carry it out himself.

It didn’t always work. Sometimes there were too many important obligations for him to even pretend he was going off on a sudden camping trip. His father and Ignis’ uncle would always come up with something that would excuse Gladio’s absence.

And Gladio didn’t _mean_ to hide it from Noct, it was just always… so important, to keep up the face of strength publically.

There’s no reason not to be honest with Noctis about it. He’s grown up with Noct. He’s well-aware that Gladio’s just human.

But when Gladio starts to feel that dreaded scratch in this throat, he gets a sinking feeling in his gut that’s not from illness at all. Because while he could make his excuses in Insomnia, hole up for a few days, and none would be any wiser, he can’t get away with that sharing tents and motel rooms with three other men _constantly_. Ignis would be on him with soup and a blanket at the first sign of a sniffle. 

He still tries, though. They go on a hunt and Gladio ignores what his body is telling him, and neither Prompto or Noctis notice, because they weren’t trained to see every weakness in a human body to exploit in a battle. And Gladio’s been trained to push through anything and everything until death.

Gladio’s still not surprised when back at the haven evening, when Prompto and Noctis are playing with the camera, Ignis takes the seat next to him, peers at him through his glasses, and asks pointedly, “Are you well?”

Gladio makes an obvious check towards the other two, and says, “Yeah, fine.”

Ignis pitches his voice lower, but presses on, “You look pale, Gladio.”

“Just a cold,” Gladio says. “I’ll be fine. I’ll power through it.” 

“You will not,” Ignis says. “At best, you’ll get all of us sick. At worst, you’ll make a mistake and be slain in battle or get one of us killed.”

“I would never let one of you get killed,” Gladio says.

Ignis stares at him and lets the words hang heavy in the air. “That doesn’t reassure me, Gladio. In fact, it cements my decision. Tomorrow, I’ll speak to Noct and—”

“No,” Gladio says. “Don’t. Fine. We’ll just go to a motel for a bit.” 

“I have to speak to Noctis,” Ignis says after a considering pause. “I cannot take us to a motel for several days and not tell him why.”

"I—I don’t want him to know that I’m sick,” Gladio says, and the words _I’m sick_ solidify and only make him feel that much worse for acknowledging it.

“Why ever not?” Ignis asks, glancing at His Highness in question, who is posing for Prompto. “You’ve been sick before, and he’s had to deal with it. Everyone falls ill at some point, Gladio.”

“I don’t want him to know,” Gladio repeats. “I—fuck. I’ve never told him when I’ve been sick before.”

“Why ever not?” Ignis asks incredulously, no longer keeping his voice down, and the others are drawing closer. “That’s—that’s frankly absurd.”

“I can’t be seen as weak,” Gladio hisses through his teeth. “I’m his _Shield_ , Iggy, I’m supposed to be strong for him.”

Ignis stares at him, surprise painted on his face, and he’s opening his mouth to say something Gladio already knows he doesn’t want to hear, when Prompto and Noctis barrel back into the circle.

And fortunately, Ignis doesn’t pursue it. Not right then, anyway.

…

The next morning, Gladio’s throat feels like he’s swallowing knives, and his nose is all clogged up. He must look as bad as he feels, for when he gets up, Ignis looks at him pointedly and says lightly, “Would you like some tea?”

“Yeah,” Gladio mutters. “Tea would be great.”

Ignis fixes him tea. “We’re going to a motel room and you’re going to rest,” Ignis tells him, and Gladio nods. “And I’m telling Noctis why.” Gladio nods again, too weak to care about that fight. “Now go back to bed. I’ll wake you up when we’re heading out.”

Gladio goes.

He doesn’t think he’ll fall back asleep feeling as poor as he is, barely being able to breathe through his nose, but he does anyway. 

…

“Hey, Gladio,” says Prompto, shaking him awake, voice soft. “Hate to wake you up, buddy, but we gotta pack up the tent.”

“Kill me,” Gladio mutters, wishing he was dead so he didn’t have to suffer through the pain of being sick.

“But then who would carry me to camp?” Prompto asks. “Come on, you can sleep in the car.”

Gladio sits up, and Prompto looks at his face and says, “Shit, you look really sick. You sure this is a cold?”

“I’m sure,” Gladio says, getting up on legs that feel way to weak, and giving up on dignity to carry a blanket with him.

Noctis is waiting by the car, and Ignis is packing some stuff into the trunk. Behind him, Gladio hears a crash of Prompto dismantling the tent and he tells himself it’s better not to look.

He focuses instead on Noctis’ face, which is staring at him. “Whoa, Gladio,” he says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sick before. You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” Gladio says, miserable. “That makes me feel so much better.”

Noctis clears his throat, “I mean, I just didn’t know you could get sick, is all. And you look really sick right now.”

Great. Great, just what Gladio wanted. “Right.”

“I mean—” Noctis begins, but Ignis mercifully cuts himself by shutting the trunk door and saying, “That’s enough, Highness. Leave Gladio in peace." 

Gladio doesn’t want peace. He doesn’t want his charge to know he can be so weak.

“I’m getting in the car,” he says instead, trudging in, and trying to immediately feign sleep so he doesn’t have to hear about how sick he looks.

He doesn’t intend to really sleep, but he’s much sicker and more tired than he thought, and falls asleep before anyone else gets in.

…

He wakes up to the other three trying to carry him. He flails, and Noctis drops him, and Iggy and Prompto barely manage to keep him away from a head injury.

“Shit!” Gladio says, scrambling to find his footing. “What the hell?!” 

“We didn’t want to wake you up!” Prompto says. Gladio’s standing now, but Prompto’s hands are still gripping his arm, like he’s still afraid he’s going to drop him.

“You guys can’t carry me, I’m three times your size!” Gladio says. Ignis huffs a little bit. “At least with you and Noctis.”

“Yeah, but with three of us—” Prompto begins.

“It was poorly advised,” Ignis admits, “but I was also loathe to wake you. It seemed prudent for you to get some rest.”

Gladio rubs his forehead and says, “Thanks for the thought, but that was terrifying. Please don’t do it again.” No one’s picked Gladio up since he was at most in his early teens. The other three are all used to being carried because it’s had to happen at one point or another—for Ignis, anyway. Prompto and Noctis are usually pretty happy to be carried anywhere for any reason.

“Sorry, big guy,” Prompto says. Noctis is lingering in the back, looking… Gladio doesn’t know that look on his face.

“What is it, Noct? Spit it out,” he says as they make their way to their rooms. 

“Sorry I dropped you,” Noctis mumbles. “I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s okay,” Gladio cuts him off. “Don’t worry about it.”

… 

The plan is to give Gladio a room of his own, so he can be sick in peace, and the others to take the second room and squish. “You guys sure about that?” Gladio says. “I can—”

“We’ll check on you, and you can text us for anything,” Ignis says. “But go and rest. We’ll be fine. There’s a couple of easy hunts in this area. We’ll take care of those for some extra cash.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Gladio says, even while Ignis herds him into bed. He lies down, and Ignis starts undoing his boots. “Iggy, you don’t need to treat me like Noct, I can do it myself.”

“Nonsense. I’m not sure how it’s alluded me all these years, but you clearly take care of yourself as well as Noctis does,” Ignis says, matter of factly. He leaves Gladio’s socks on, but presses lightly against his arms and shoulders to relieve him of his jacket. “You feel warm,” he notes, checking his forehead. “You might have a fever. I’ll bring over a water bottle. Perhaps I’ll ask Prompto to stay with you.”

“Don’t,” Gladio says, and Ignis pats his hair.   
  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ignis says. “He’d be honored for the chance.”

…

Gladio passes out sometime while Iggy’s doing his thing, and wakes up to see Noctis playing on his phone. “What are you doing here?” Gladio says, voice hoarse and sharp.

Noctis startles, dropping his phone. “Ifrit’s _balls_ , man, what the hell?” He leans over, picking up his phone. “I’m looking after you, that’s what I’m doing. Iggy and Prom went off on a hunt.”

“By _themselves_?” Gladio says, sitting up. Shit, his entire _body_ is sore. This is definitely not a cold.

“Relax, it’s an easy hunt, and they’re both good at what they do. They’ll be fine,” Noctis says.

“So _you’re_ here to take care of me,” Gladio says incredulously.

“Don’t sound like that. I can take care of other people. Look at Prompto,” Noctis says, “I’ve managed to keep him alive.”

“Prompto’s a friend, not a puppy,” Gladio says automatically, but his lips twitch up at the accurate comparison.

“And he desperately needs someone to take care of him, like a puppy. You can see it in his eyes,” Noctis says, and Gladio laughs, which turns into a fit of coughing, which makes everything hurt.

“Shit,” Noctis says. “Specs left me some medication and soup, do you want them?”

“Meds would be great. Hook me up,” Gladio wheezes.

Noctis vanishes and returns with a whole assortment of bottles and a container of soup. “Okay, so this is a fever reducer, which you definitely need, a cough suppressant, which you need, a decongestant, which you also need, and you have to take them all with food, so you need soup.”

Gladio’s stomach rebels at the idea of food, but he really needs medicine, and taking them without food will surely lead to puking his guts up. “Fine. Soup me up.”

… 

Gladio can barely taste the soup to appreciate how tasty he knows it must be, but it settles his stomach to the point where he no longer feels nauseated. He can take the pills without fear, and settle back into sleep. “If you stay here, you’re going to get sick, too,” he mutters to Noctis, who hasn’t left yet.

“I gotta make sure my Shield is going to be okay, don’t I?” The Prince retorts, not looking up from his phone. “Can’t lose him.”

Gladio grins a bit but keeps his eyes closed. “You’re not going to lose me over a little flu, Noct.”

“Look, you’ve never been at the receiving end of Iggy’s lecture on how much worse things like colds and flus can get if you don’t take care of yourself, have you?” Noctis asks. “I’ll tell him you need to hear it too.”

“That’ll make me feel better for sure,” Gladio slurs, already falling back to sleep. Noctis says something else, but he misses it. 

…

Gladio sleeps through a couple of days, waking up only for food and medication, and to use the bathroom. Most of the time, Noctis is there, though he’s replaced by Iggy when he starts becoming more coherent.

“The hunt went well,” Ignis says mildly as Gladio exits the bathroom. “And I see you’re doing better.”

“Much. You were right,” Gladio says, because Ignis loves nothing more than people admitting that he’s right. “Stopping for some good, old, solid rest was a good idea.”

“Of course I was right,” Ignis says. “If you ignore an illness, it always has the potential to develop into far worse illnesses, like pneumonia, bronchitis, or any various infections. Especially since this seemed like quite a nasty bout of the flu.”

“Right, right.” This must be the lecture Noctis promised. Gladio is fairly sure that Noctis said something about such a thing, anyway. “Noctis was a pretty good caretaker, by the way. Think he’s picked up some stuff from you.”

Ignis smiles a bit. “He was pretty adamant about remaining behind. His Highness was quite besides himself with worry for you,” Iggy says. “You should perhaps speak to him. I think it was quite… _alarming_ for him, to see you so sickly.” 

Gladio runs his hands through his hair. “Yeah, that’s why I didn’t want to stop in the first place.”

“That’s utterly ridiculous, Gladio, you do know that, don’t you?” Ignis asks. “Everyone gets sick at some point.”

“Yeah, but I’m his _Shield_. I’m supposed to protect him,” Gladio argues, sitting on the bed. “I can’t protect him when he’s taking care of me because I have the flu.”

“You can’t protect him if you don’t take care of yourself,” Ignis states firmly. “And with this trip, it’s more important than ever that we are all honest about our needs. We must push ourselves for so many reasons now, so we must do what we can to maintain ourselves for when we have no other choice." 

Ignis is right. “Dammit, Iggy,” Gladio says. “I hate when you talk sense into me.”

He smirks. “Someone must.”

“I’ll talk to Noctis later,” Gladio says. He shouldn’t have gone very far, and Gladio desperately needs to get out of the hotel room and the bed for a little bit. He won’t last long, feeling still fairly poor, but stretching his legs would do him so good at this point. “I’ll—I’ll let him know he doesn’t have to worry about me.”

Ignis sighs, like he’s disappointed. Gladio’s not usually on the receiving end of that one. “Be sure to tell me how that goes, won’t you?”

…

Gladio gets the chance to speak to Noctis the next day, finding him and Prompto on the worn couch in the diner by the arcade games, playing King’s Knight. Prompto looks up to see him coming, smiles, and says, “Catch you later, Noct!” and ups and leaves. Huh. Gladio’s gonna have to find out what he and Ignis talked about when they were on a hunt together because that was particularly perceptive for him.

Noctis stares after Prompto vanishing into the motel, and then searches around bewildered before finding Gladio. “Oh, hey, should you be up?”

“Yeah,” Gladio says. “Feeling much better. Thanks to your gentle care, Your Highness.”

Noctis pinkens. “Shut up.”

Gladio sprawls down onto the couch, close enough to Noctis that their sides are pressed against each other in a solid line of warmth and throws an arm over his shoulder. Noctis, apparently deciding that they’re going to stay there a while, lifts his legs up and crosses them while on top of Gladio’s thigh. He waits until Noctis has made himself comfortable in whatever position he wants to be in, and then mumbles into Noctis’ hair, “So. You’ve never seen me sick before.”

“I didn’t know you got sick, man,” Noctis says, putting his phone away and leaning in. “It’s never happened before.”

“It has happened before,” Gladio corrects. “I just always said I was going on a sudden camping trip.”

“What?” Noctis says. He pauses for a moment, and Gladio can hear him reevaluate several occasions when they were younger. “Why? I mean, dude. I was in a wheelchair for years, I wouldn’t have judged you for getting sick sometimes.”

“It’s, uh,” Gladio says. Sighs. “I never wanted you to see me weak, Noct.”

“But I don’t care about that,” Noctis says. “Dude, you’ve seen me at my worst, like my—my absolute worst.” He pauses there, and doesn’t say anything about how sick Noctis got so often on top of his injuries, and how much help he needed for the basics, like going to the bathroom. “I don’t—why is that so important? You don’t want me to see you as human like the rest of us?”

“No!” Gladio says. “What? That’s not it at all, why—” Sure, Gladio comes from an ancient, noble line, but _Prince of Lucis_ shouldn’t be worrying about being a mere mortal.

“Then what’s the problem?” Noctis snaps pulling away slightly. “Why can’t you admit yourself that you were getting sick and let us take care of you!”

“I want you to think of me as strong,” Gladio says through gritted teeth. Noctis is getting a little loud, and they need to bring the volume down. “I don’t—I’m your Shield, I want you to know you can always rely on me.” 

Noctis stares up at him, eyes wide and mouth gaping.

He shifts uncomfortably, patience and energy still frayed from his illness. “What?” 

“Gladio,” Noctis says, softly, and for a second, he sounds like a King. “I know I can always rely on you.”

He swallows and tries to think of a response to… that. But he can’t refute his King.

“Okay,” he says instead. “Good. I’m—good.”

Notis relaxes against him. “I think Iggy said we’re going to stay for one more day for you to fully recover, and we’ll head out tomorrow. So we can just rest today.”

Gladio breathes in, cataloguing the state of his body, which is… not great. Despite how much sleep he’s been getting, he feels like he needs another nap after the short trip outside and the heart to heart.

But Noctis is settled in, against him and partly on top of him, curling into him, warm and safe.

Gladio closes his eyes for a moment, when Noctis pats his chest lightly. “Come on, Gladio, you’re falling asleep.” He untangles himself from Gladio and gets up. “Let’s get back to bed.” 

“You’re going to crawl in with me for a nap?” Gladio asks, lightly teasing. 

“Yeah, I am,” Noctis says, grabbing his hand as they walk up the stairs. “No safer place to be.”


End file.
